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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2009

Typological, Formal and Structural Elements of the Industrial Architecture of Paul Friesé. The Electricity Generating Stations and Sub-Stations of Paris, 1889-1912

Résumé

"A factory, according to Pevsner's definition, is a building of some size in which products are made in some quantity" (Pevsner 1976, p. 273). The electricity generated and supplied to private and public consumers is an industrial product as such and electricity power plants clearly belong to the family of factories. According to a fundamental principle, as was the case with factories, power plants were situated on the outskirts of populated areas and, where possible, near rivers. Indeed, the black smoke of the boilers, and the roar and vibration emanating from the generators would always ensure that the plants were kept at a distance from urban centres, as long as that proved to be technically possible. The first large plant built in an urban context in Paris, right in the heart of a residential quarter, was the power station in the Place Clichy sector, a project by Jules Denfer and Paul Friesé, completed in 1890. This plant produced and distributed direct current over a distance of up to 2 500 m. Today, only the administrative building with its decorated façade, facing the rue des Dames, remains (51-53, rue des Dames, 17 th arrondissement; the building has been included in the Inventory of Historical Monuments since 1992). At first, electricity was produced only in the form of direct current and was supplied over short distances at the same tension (after the invention and development of the dynamo, industrial current became available just before 1880). Later, after the general switch over to alternating current-which, thanks to the triphase system and the use of transformers, facilitated transmission and distribution over larger distances-the plants were able to establish themselves away from towns and the network of sub-stations grew. The last two urban power stations were the power plant of the Compagnie parisienne de l'air comprimé [Parisian Company for Compressed Air] of 1895, and the Métropolitain plant on the rue de Bercy dating from 1899-1904, both designed by Friesé. The plant belonging to the company Le Triphasé at Asnières (on the former quai d'Asnières, today renamed quai Aulagnier, Asnières-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine), also constructed by Friesé between 1898 and 1901, was the first power station in the suburbs to supply a Parisian sector. (It ensured partial supply to the Place Clichy sector. From 1900 onwards, this sector purchased triphase current at 5 500 volt from the company Le Triphasé; transformation was carried out at the station on the rue des Dames). During this same period, there was a rapid increase in the number of electric sub-stations, industrial relay buildings and infrastructural elements, most often urban in nature. Sited in various quarters, they redistributed hightension alternating current from the plants in the suburbs. This they transformed into low-tension direct current, the highly stable nature of which was necessary in order to supply the Métropolitan network, both for the traction of the rail carriages and the lighting of the stations. Between 1903 and 1912, Friesé constructed substations in Paris for the Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain, the main industrial consumer of electricity, ABSTRACT: This essay relates to certain typological and formal elements of electricity power stations and substations in Paris as designed by Paul Friesé (1851-1917). Despite the fact that the work of this architect was entirely informed by the rules and design templates of eclecticism, it was far from lacking architectural innovation. Indeed, throughout a career characterised by successive improvements in the spatial and functional organisation of buildings, Friesé experimented with, and adopted, a certain number of practical and structural solutions precisely at the time when scientists, technicians and industrialists were perfecting the harnessing of electric generators, the output of which had become satisfactory, to the driving force of steam engines.
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hal-03653042 , version 1 (29-04-2022)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03653042 , version 1

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Matteo Porrino. Typological, Formal and Structural Elements of the Industrial Architecture of Paul Friesé. The Electricity Generating Stations and Sub-Stations of Paris, 1889-1912. Third International Congress on Construction History, Cottbus, May 2009, May 2009, Cottbus, Germany. ⟨hal-03653042⟩
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